Greg Monroe

Playoffs? Unlike Jim Mora, there’s no question it’s playoff time. With the season almost over, tough decisions and moves need to be made. A guy that helped you during the regular season may not be helpful now. You’re trying to win a championship and there are only so many weeks left in the season to accomplish that. Hopefully your team is healthy, but if not, here’s an update on the latest injuries:

Dwight Howard returned for the Houston Rockets, after missing 26 games with swelling in his right knee. In 16 minutes as a starter, Howard recorded 4 points, 7 rebounds, and 1 block. Howard only played 16 minutes because of a minutes’ restriction, rather than because of foul trouble (he had 4 fouls in the game).

This is definitely good news for the Rockets and fantasy owners’ playoff runs. Each game, Howard should see his minutes rise, but it probably won’t be another week or so until he’s back to playing full minutes. Even then, he may sit a game or two if he feels any discomfort or the Rockets decide to rest him for the playoffs. This is pure speculation on my part, but it wouldn’t surprise me, since Howard has been limited to 33 games this season. The Rockets want to be careful with him.

The Thunder just can’t catch a break this season. Kevin Durant is still out with a foot injury and now Serge Ibaka will join him on the sidelines.

Ibaka underwent surgery this week to help address discomfort in his knee. Apparently, Ibaka had been experiencing soreness since February. Despite setting up a management plan to help alleviate the pain, the Thunder ultimately decided that surgery was the best option.

Ibaka is expected to be out between four and six weeks. If all goes well in his recovery, Ibaka should be able to return for the Thunder’s first round series, should they hold off the Pelicans for the eighth playoff spot.

As a result of the timeline, Ibaka’s regular season is over. He’s safe to drop in redraft leagues. Ibaka’s MRI prior to the surgery revealed no structural or long-term issues so Ibaka is a great keeper for next season.

Wow, big upset last night as the Pistons beat the Gizz 105-95. I had “Grizz” typoed but laughed too hard to fix it…

And leading the way in running the Gizz out of Detroit was Reggie Jackson‘s Goromotaro! Well, not really, 20/20 in Pts/Dimes doesn’t have an official Razzball name… 20 dimes is a double dimebag though! Wait, no one gets those, it goes up to a quarter… Can’t really complain that R-Jax didn’t get to 25 assists, but yeah, focus JB! I wonder what could’ve flared up my ADD!

With my boyfriend Kentavious Caldwell-Pope hitting so many shots (not doing much else though in a 24/0/1/0/0 line), making 10-16 FG and scoring 16 Pts in the 3rd quarter, R-Jax piled up a ton of dimes on jumpers. In the 3rd alone he had 6 dimes on 20+ foot FGM – 4 to KCP. Helps when your fellow shooters are hot! Just ask Stephen Curry how his season is going… R-Jax has certainly had his ups and downs, and didn’t even have a single assist against the Jazz on Saturday! I wanna say it was all due to Rudy Gobert, but if he was D-ing up R-Jax then Dante Exum would be on Andre Drummond! I’m not depending on high-volume dimes here on out, but when R-Jax is in his lows, remember he was a pickup for a lot of his owners. So just thank your lucky stars for last night and enjoy the wave without putting the R-Jax on the pedestal, the underlining message from The 40-Year-Old Virgin. Or else you let the Gizz win! Here’s what else went down last night in fantasy basketball action:

“…From the depths of the muck – ya know, that soft clay shizz at the bottom of a lake – comes the waiver-wired, until recently available in a ton of leagues, RODNEY STUCKEY!”

Monster game from R-Stuck, who gets to R-Stick it to a hot Reality-TV show wife, unquestioningly motivating him to a 34/6/7/1/1 line last night with an NBA Jam “he’s on fire!” 13-19 FG and 6 treys. Just a redonk game in 31 bench minutes, especially since the Pacers started Damjan Rudez who couldn’t miss either, hitting 6-8 including 5-7 from deep. It’s like the Pacers were playing on Fisher-Price baskets! Although those “throwback” (well, just older, not too throwback) unis are schweet. While a big game and all, Stuckey was averaging a monstrous 0.6 3PTM a game before last night, so a huge anomaly there. 1,000% more 3s! And the dimes were an outlier as well, with only two games more than 6 before yesterday. Anyone in the NBA can get hot on any given night, and Stuckey is a good low-to-mid-teens scorer ala that creeper who stayed home instead of going to college. He’s fine as a last guy on your bench in 10 or 12ers, but I don’t think he’s someone to drop a stud for. A great comment yesterday was Stuckey or Brandon Knight, who was spotted on crutches yesterday. Yeah, unless you have a H2H week one bye, I’ll probably pick the guy who can currently walk. Here’s what else happened last night in fantasy hoops action:

I really don’t like this 7 game slate on Saturday night. If you want to take the night off or play less volume I wouldn’t argue against it. There isn’t a player over 9k on Draft Kings if that tells you what kind of night it’s going to be.

Point Guards

Ricky Rubio has really been fantastic the past 5 games. His price has come up but still not to the level where his play has been. Memphis gives up the 4th most fantasy points the last three weeks to PG’s. Back on Feb. 6th Rubio had 17-5-5-3 in only 26 minutes against this same Memphis team.

Reggie Jackson has only had 3 games with the Pistons. Yeah it’s a small sample size, but he’s been given the keys to the car and seeing the same workload as D.J. Augustin was. The Wizards have been decent defending against opposing PG’s if you look at their season totals, but the last three weeks they haven’t defended well at all. I think that has to do with all of John Wall’s nagging injuries.

Oh man, not a fun night for Mark Cuban unless he’s also invested in the Dallas area sports medicine clinics. The way the NBA has gone this year, it’d be a smart investment!

First into the Shark Tank was Tyson Chandler, who sprained his ankle a minute and half in and couldn’t return. He had an earlier ankle sprain and it didn’t cost him any time, so even though it looked bad, ol’ Tyson is no Chicken. Then a mere couple minutes later, Monta Ellis hurt his hip and only played 3 and a half minutes. As Kevin tells us in The Office – “That’s Dallas!” Man, good thing the All-Star Break is right around the corner! Even if both guys say they’re 100%, I see no reason why the Mavs would push em for their game tomorrow night hosting the Jazz. While they’re out, we’re a bunch of preying sharks circling the bloody waters like Mr. Wonderful and Herjavec! And last night it was the hairless ghost (wait, ghosts usually don’t have hair right?) of Charlie Villanueva who piled up some junky stats hitting 9-13 from the field for 26/5/1 with 5 treys. Was awful other than points and treys with 3-6 FT and 4 TO. Big man ThrAGNOF! But for me, the big winner for tomorrow night is Mark Cuban’s own (seriously, kinda seems like he’s his dad – Shawn Marion comp?) Al-Farouq Aminu. Only 19 minutes last night, but hit all the cats for 5/6/1/1/1. Mark Cuban Jr. is only owned in 10% of Yahoo leagues, and in a shortened week where every steal and block will count, he should be one of your first calls on the wire in what should be a spot-start. Here’s what else went down last night in fantasy hoops action:

Sometime before the weekend, Blake Griffin had a fairly routine (and he’s had a few) elbow draining. Blake’s draining jumpers, the team docs are draining elbows! But over the weekend the elbow developed a staph infection, and he’ll have surgery and won’t be evaluated until after the All-Star Break. Blake is firing off jumpers and the team docs are about to be fired! Reports are saying it could be a 4-6 week sort of thing, but with staph infections you never know. Either way, he’s an obvious hold in all leagues. While Blake goes all Leo McGarry on us, Samurai Spencer Hawes and his little hair bun went 17/1/0/0/1 on 7-16 shooting with two treys in 35 minutes. Samurai Spence should be an add in virtually all leagues, as his mix of scoring/treys/blocks can help a lot of teams. Sure he won’t board almost at all for a big with DeAndre Jordan swallowing em all up, but we can ignore that. Kinda like how Denis McDonough ignored that second “n” in his first name. What is it with “Mc” real-life and fictional Chiefs of Staph?! I bet the Oval Office whisky is well stocked… Here’s what else went down over the weekend in fantasy basketball action:

Last year, I think Jonas Valanciunas might have won the “most annoying player for JB” award. Eh, Jeff Green was up there too… But we’ve got a clear front-runner for 14-15!

If you had money on Brandon Jennings racking up the first double dimebag of the season, then all praise be onto you! Great game against the Magic, as he gashed their “defense” for a 24/0/21/0/0 line. Pretty empty to me, only two cats in there! First 20-assist game this season, doubling up the dimebags and making BJ’s value as high as Katt Williams. You’re probably looking like this as a Jennings owner right now! He’s only the 4th guy to put up a 20/20 game since 2000, and I guess all my sell Jennings high hooblah is looking a little dumb now… I still think if you can get one of the higher-tier guys like a Jeff Teague you have to do it, but otherwise I guess it’s a strong hold and ride the wave. Upside of two dimebags on any given night?! That’s a friend you need to keep for life! Here’s what else went down last night in fantasy basketball action:

I usually start of the write up with some news or something positive. Today I am going in a different direction cause I got something to rant about. I want to know how people in L.A., New York, and Philly go watch these crap ass NBA teams play ? I just don’t get it. Don’t tell me that people go to see the players on the other team either cause most teams are sitting there stars when they play these garbage teams. It’s not even bearable to watch. Do these people have nothing else better to do or spend there money on? If so give your tickets to some underprivileged kids that normally couldn’t go to a game. The money these people spend on tickets and other things at the arena, I am sure there are a bunch of charities that could use that money. I see Spike Lee at the Knicks game shaking his head and throwing his hands in the air in disbelief. Really? Don’t tell me you went to the Knicks game the other night and thought they were going to be competitive. It’s a flipping joke and it’s hurting the NBA. And if Adam Silver thinks these teams aren’t tanking on purpose he’s a damn moron. The only way these owners get the picture is if you hit them in the pocket and that’s by not going to the arena. How does this relate to fantasy you ask? It hurts season long leagues more than the daily side of it. In season long you’re just screwed when your stud player sits or barely plays against these weak ass teams. In DFS you have to be careful using high priced stud players against these teams. Yeah, you look on paper and the matchup is off the charts but is that player going to be needed for his team to win. We seen that most teams back ups are good enough to blow these teams out. So really it’s better if the player or players just sit out and we get to use the back ups in a good spot. It also creates much needed salary relief for your rosters. I bet you are all saying “will this guy just get on with it already”. Ok you win. We a nice 8 game slate on Saturday night with some very nice match ups. I also have a couple links down below about some industry news that happen this week.

Oh man, was it a tale of two halves for the Raptors last night! They were lobbin’ shizz all over the place like they were the Globetrotters against the… Who do they play again? That they always beat? Oh yeah, the Knicks, like they were the Globetrotters against the Knicks. Kyle Lowry had 9 dimes in the first quarter and Jonas Valanciunas put up 14 points on 7-8 shooting. Drummo playing uggo! Kinda a “but his D” lately… The Luminescent Lithuanian ended up going 14-15 for 31/12/0/0/1. The FT% is nice (3-4 last night and right at 80% on the year), but his combined – yes COMBINED – Ast/Stl/Blk this year are under 2. Sigh. I thought he could turn into something so much more special! There are some long-term nice things – per-36s he’s cut down a few TO, scoring more, fouls are down – but Casey is playing him lower minutes than last year (and wouldn’t consistently feed him after that hot start) and I don’t know if he’s ever going to be more than a slightly taller Zach Randolph. And with that, J-Val is all insulted, buttoning up his clothes, and not giving me that flash of hope. Dammit, I’m my own cockblocker! Me n Valaciunas are gonna be awkward for a while until safely in the friendzone. Here’s what else went down on a light night of Monday action: